CAAI Webinar: Innovative Interventions for Children and Youth on the Autism Spectrum

In order to view the webinar presentation, please click on the webinar icon below.

Tuesday, July 17, 20123:30pmET - 5:00pmET Location: webinar

This webinar was the fourth webinar in the Combating Autism Act Initiative (CAAI) webinar series. This discussion highlighted innovative projects by CAAI grantees aimed at intervention strategies for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The CAAI webinar series is designed to showcase successes of CAAI grantees, connect attendees to CAAI grantees, and highlight CAAI activities. The series runs from April through August 2012 and will replace the annual face-to-face CAAI conference.

Bonnie Strickland, PhD, Director, Division of Services for CSHCN, MCHB, HRSADr. Strickland is the author of many publications and presentations related to children and youth with special health care needs, and serves on numerous interagency committees to promote systems of care for children and youth with special health care needs. She is also plays a key leadership role in the development and implementation of the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (NS-CSHCN, which provides state and national data for performance measurement, quality improvement, and reporting progress toward the national Healthy People 2020 Objectives.

Susan Hepburn, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical CampusDr. Hepburn is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. As Director of Research for JFK Partners (which is the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities serving the Rocky Mountain region), she oversees the diagnostic qualification and family recruitment activities for several projects, focusing her own work on developing, evaluating and disseminating interventions for school-aged youth with ASD. Working primarily in schools and with families, Dr. Hepburn has been exploring novel ways of supporting evidence-based practice in rural areas.

Scott Lindgren, PhD, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Carver College of Medicine, The University of Iowa Children's Hospital Autism CenterDr. Lindgren is a pediatric psychologist and Professor of Pediatrics in the University of Iowa Children's Hospital and the Carver College of Medicine. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Iowa. His current clinical, teaching, and research activities are focused on child neuropsychology, brain injuries, autism spectrum disorders, disability and health, and the prevention of disabilities, and he is the Co-PI on NIH- and MCH-supported research grants that are studying the effects of behavioral interventions for autism provided through telehealth. Dr. Lindgren is Associate Director for Program Development for Iowa's University Center for Excellence on Disabilities and is the Psychology Training Director for Iowa's Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program. He is currently Chair of the Iowa Prevention of Disabilities Policy Council and Co-Director of the UI Children's Hospital Autism Center.

Connie Kasari, PhD, Professor, The University of California, Los AngelesDr. Kasari is Professor of Psychological Studies in Education and Psychiatry at UCLA, where she is the Principal Investigator for several multi-site research programs, including the Autism Intervention Research Network for Behavioral Health funded by HRSA and the Characterizing Cognition in Nonverbal Individuals with Autism Intervention network by Autism Speaks. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was a NIMH postdoctoral fellow at the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA. Since 1990 she has been on the faculty at UCLA where she teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses, and has been the primary advisor to more than 30 PhD students. She is a founding member of the Center for Autism Research and Treatment at UCLA and has been actively involved in autism research for the past 25 years, leading projects under the CPEA, STAART, and Autism Centers of Excellence programs from NIH. Her current research focuses on developing targeted interventions for early social communication development in at risk infants, toddlers and preschoolers with autism, and peer relationships for school aged children with autism. She is involved in several randomized controlled trials, with her most recent work involving multi-site studies for interventions aimed at underserved and under-represented populations of children with autism. She has published widely on topics related to social, emotional, and communication development and intervention in autism. She is on the treatment advisory board of the Autism Speaks Foundation, and regularly presents to both academic and practitioner audiences locally, nationally and internationally.